from issue #1Hollywood Stars of the '30s, featuring James Cagney, Joan Crawford, and Barbara Stanwyck. articles by Gary Johnson and Grant Tracey.

The Golden Age of Exploitationan interview with Felicia Feaster and Bret Wood, authors of Forbidden Fruit, interview by Gary JohnsonIn the '30s and '40s, independent theaters frequently turned to movies produced outside of the Hollywood system. These movies capitalized upon salacious, sensational topics--such as drug abuse, prostitution, polygamy, and venereal disease. They provided scenes that no Production Code-approved Hollywood movie would ever provide. In Damaged Lives, a group of fun-loving women strip naked and go skinny dipping. In Because of Eve, a doctor educates a young couple on the joys of reproduction by showing them documentary footage of a real childbirth. In Slaves in Bondage, prostitutes share a good time by spanking each other. And in Reefer Madness, arguably the most famous of all exploitation films, partying teens freely indulge in marijuana and turn into giggling maniacs.

Sinsational Sinemaan interview with Eddie Muller, author of Grindhouse, interview by Gary JohnsonFrom the 1920s through the 1970s, America's most fearless entrepreneurs created thousands of "adults only" features--exploitation films that promised "Sinsational!" treatments of the day's hottest topics. These films played red-light-district theaters and roadshows for almost half a century, until hardcore pornography and the advent of VCRs rang the death knell for this distinctive form of "art."

Russ Meyervideo reviews by Gary JohnsonFew film directors working in the sexploitation genre have ever attracted the attention of mainstream critics. Russ Meyer is one of the exceptions. From the late '50s through the early '70s, Meyer parlayed his love of large breasts into an impressive filmmaking career. While most sexploitation movies in the '60s were poorly lit and indifferently photographed, Meyer's films brimmed with cartoonish color schemes, rapid fire editing, and surprising camera angles.

Radley Metzgervideo reviews by Gary MorrisRadley Metzger was both a key player in, and a catalyst for, the sexual revolution of the '60s, and his career contains several milestones in this area. Among his movies number Therese and Isabelle, the first and still best realistic treatment of an adolescent lesbian amour; The Lickerish Quartet, which merged the unlikely elements of Pirandello and pornography; and Score, a sex farce that was far ahead of its time in refashioning the erotic date movie.